Cinnamon Sugar Mini Donut Muffins – Part cinnamon-sugar donut hole, part mini-muffin, no matter what you call them, they’re fast and easy to make, and so tasty and pop-able. Because they’re baked rather than fried, I don’t feel guilty when I pop more than a couple.
I grew up eating fried mini donuts at fairs and carnivals and loved every greasy, cinnamon-sugary second.
These mini donut muffins are the next best thing.
I couldn’t decide if they were more like a donut hole or a mini muffin, so I’m calling them donut muffins.
They come together from start to finish in under 30 minutes. Having warm, fresh donut muffins for breakfast sure beats a bowl of cold cereal.
And yes, plan to eat muffins, plural. They’re tiny, but oh so pop-able. But because they’re baked rather than fried, I don’t feel too guilty when I’m popping away.
Four of these mini muffins are still smaller than 1 bakery-style coffee shop muffin. I’ve noticed that bakery and coffee shop muffins keep getting bigger and bigger, and they’re now about the size of a softball. These are about half the size of a golf ball.
If you don’t have mini muffin pans <–I love that pan, you can bake them in a standard-sized muffin pan
, or bake them as donuts
or mini donuts
and adjust baking times accordingly.
Buttermilk keeps them soft, light, tender, and fluffy. It also serves to add moisture, which is important because I find that mini muffins and baked donuts are prone to dryness, but the buttermilk protects against it.
No buttermilk? Cheat and make some with regular milk.
A hefty dose of cinnamon in the batter as well as in the cinnamon-sugar coating, makes for well-spiced muffins. The cinnamon is noticeable and distinct, but not overpowering. If you’re a cinnamon fiend and prefer to be over-powered, it’s easy to add more to taste.
I also added ground nutmeg because I find it rounds out flavors, especially cinnamon. It gives depth in a can’t-quite-put-your-finger-on-it kind of way.
They bake quickly, in just about 10 minutes. Because they’re small, they can go from raw to dried out and crisp in the span of about 90 seconds, so watch them closely.
Ten minutes with my two mini muffins pans was the magic number, but due to variance in pan size, oven, and climate, watch your muffins not the clock. If you’re baking them as full-size muffins, I’d estimate 17 to 20 minutes, but haven’t tested it.
After they bake, dip the tops in melted butter and then in cinnamon-sugar. The cinnamon-sugar coating is key. It adds so much extra cinnamony flavor and the sugar granules add donut hole authenticity.
I almost put them in a gallon-sized ziplock, and wanted to pour butter into the bag, then douse with cinnamon-sugar, and shake. But I used restraint and simply dipped the tops. Next time I’ll live dangerously and use the bag, butter, and shake method because it’s faster, and why say no to more butter and more cinnamon-sugar.
The flavor and the speed in which these little puffballs went from idea to reality to half a dozen in my belly makes them a total win.
Once you pop, you can’t stop.
This is my second mini food recipe this week.
It’s cute, it’s fun, and it clearly tastes better.
Pin This Recipe
Enjoy AverieCooks.com Without Ads! 🆕
Go Ad Free
Cinnamon Sugar Mini Donut Muffins
Ingredients
Muffins
- 1 large egg
- 5 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
- ¼ cup granulated sugar
- ¼ cup light brown sugar, packed
- 1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract
- ¾ cup buttermilk
- 1 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons cinnamon
- 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- pinch salt, optional and to taste
Coating
- 3 Tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
- ¼ cup granulated sugar
- 1 to 2 teaspoons cinnamon
Instructions
- For the Muffins – Preheat oven to 350F. Spray two 12-count mini muffin pans with floured cooking spray; set aside. (You can make as full-size muffins and will likely yield about 1 dozen; or make as donuts or mini donuts; adjusting baking times accordingly)
- To the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment (or large bowl and hand mixer), combine egg, butter, sugars, vanilla, and beat on medium-high speed to cream ingredients until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes.
- Stop, scrape down the sides of the bowl, and add the buttermilk. Beat momentarily to incorporate.
- Add the remaining dry ingredients and mix on low speed until just incorporated; don’t overmix. Batter will be fairly thick.
- Using a spoon sprayed with cooking spray so the batter slides off easily, drop rounded tablespoons into prepared pans. Fill each cavity about 3/4-full. (I made 28 mini muffins and some were on the skimpy side. In order to keep the yield at an even 24 muffins, I recommend dividing batter equally among 24 wells)
- Bake for 9 to 11 minutes (mine took 10 minutes exactly), or until muffins are domed with set centers, are springy to the touch, and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Because they’re small, they cook quickly and 1 minute can drastically effect taste; don’t overbake and watch them closely. Allow muffins to cool in the pans on top of a wire rack for about 10 minutes before removing. While the muffins cool, prepare the coating.
- For the Coating – In a small microwave-safe bowl, melt the butter, about 1 minute on high power; set aside.
- In a separate small bowl, stir together the sugar and cinnamon; set aside.
- After the muffins have cooled, dip each muffin top briefly in melted butter, then in cinnamon-sugar, and repeat until all muffins have been coated. Optionally, the entire muffin could be buttered and coated similar to traditional cinnamon-sugar donut holes, and in doing so, you’d need to melt more butter and use more cinnamon-sugar. Serve immediately. Donut Muffins are best fresh, but will keep airtight at room temperature for up to 4 days (noting that the cinnamon-sugar coating may liquify a bit), or in the freezer for up to 3 months.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
©averiecooks.com. Content and photographs are copyright protected. Sharing of this recipe is both encouraged and appreciated. Copying and/or pasting full recipes to any social media is strictly prohibited.
Related Recipes:
Baked Cinnamon Bun Donuts with Vanilla Cream Cheese Glaze
Fluffy Vegan Coconut Oil Banana Muffins and Mini Muffins
Baked Vanilla Donuts with Vanilla Glaze
Banana Yogurt Muffins and Little Banana Bread Loaf
Baked Eggnog Vanilla Donuts and Mini Donuts with Eggnog Rum Glaze (use regular milk in place of the eggnog this time of year)
Six-Banana Banana Bread with Mini Loaf
Chocolate Lover’s Chocolate Chocolate-Chip Muffins
Mini Cream Cheese Pound Cakes with Vanilla Cream Cheese Glaze
Peanut Butter and Jelly Muffins
Thanks for the entries in the Peanut Butter Comfort and KitchenAid Handheld Blender Giveaway
What’s your favorite donut or muffin recipe? Mini food fan?
I never leave comments after I cook one of the many, many recipes I find on Pinterest, but this time I must!! Oh my goodness, these little bits of goodness were heavenly!! Glad I doubled the recipe … I was making these to bring to work tomorrow but thought I better make extra to leave some at home for the husband … he will love them because I can’t get enough of them and I don’t even like pumpkin flavored goodies!! Thanks for sharing!!
Thanks for trying the recipe and I’m glad it came out great for you! Glad that you’re a big fan and thanks for leaving a comment – I appreciate it! If you make other things of mine, LMK!
i absolutely adore how you are making good tasting food healthy, nutricious and allmost completelyhyposllergenic(the 1 where it doesn’t affect allergies-always get the hypo & hper mixed up- sorry) . I’m hoping you might want to take on a bit of a challenge? I had bariatric surgery that went well for 2 yrs lost over 200 lbs an then scar tissue showed up. In the removal there happened to be surgical incompetence-but what I’m concentrating on is East I’m able yo eat AND keep down since IVS & SIBO also reared their ugly little heads. So heres the challenge: yo find at least 1 , 2 would be amazing, foods I can eat following the FODMAPS & Bariatric diets. With the bariatric it’s basically no more than 7 total sugars & 7 total fats per meal. A meal portion can be no more than about 8 to 10 oz and the 10 is REALLY stretching it. I’m also supposed to be consuming between 60 and about 85 grams of protein a day. Here’s the fun part; my body absolutely rejects beef, pork, chicken snout 3/4 of the time fish snout 1/2 of the time, never will it keep ruffage down. Right now my diet consists of. Sugar-free Double Chocolate Pudding-mainly because it’s the only thing I’ve found that can cover the taste of the medicine Entourage which I must do 2 times a day, and the occasional greek light & Fit. -Dannon reduced fat & sugar vanilla coconut, and pretty much get the majority of protein from drinking Keeper Brand Carbmaster Chocolate Milk which has no fat 6 sugars and 12 proteins per cup. It’s also lacrosse free which is imps for the Fodmaps diet. When I do have a yogurt, it is accompanied by doses of lacrtaid. If thesis smethngyu have no interest in-believe me, I understand. I’ve been on this little “adventure” for 25 months now. Thanks for your time.
again, many thanks for raven reading thru this! God Bless & keep you!
Shrlley
Hi Averie,
I thought you are also interested that this site (https://motivanova.com/?p=6204) stole and republished our pictures. They run ads and get paid for using our work. I just contacted the webhost to take my material down. It appears that this site only uses plagiarized material. I find this very sad, especially since we as honest bloggers put a lot of time into our work.
Wishing you a great day.
Kirsten
Thanks for the heads up. I don’t have a problem as much with those that just use 1 picture + a linkback. I do get batty though when they take my images and reprint my recipe in full, basically copy/paste of my blog post and reprint my entire post verbatim and are running ads on it!
I published a very similar recipe for cinnamon sugar donut muffins on my blog in Jan. 2013. They are a huge hit with my readers, too. https://www.mykitchenintherockies.com/2013/01/06/cinnamon-sugar-donut-muffins/
Love your addition of the buttermilk and brown sugar! Greetings from CO, Kirsten.
There are so many slightly different recipes for cinnamon sugar donut muffins. I know at least 5 bloggers right off the top of my head who have one. Yours look great and glad it’s a successful recipe for you!
These little Cinnamon Sugar Mini Donuts look simply delicious. Love the little snacks Averie! I am picturing these with some sort of filling like your Peanut Butter and Jelly Muffins. Great photography as well, thanks!
Thanks, Kevin! I appreciate it!